Normandy School District

Let’s say you’ve been a teacher in the Normandy school district for a while and are wondering what’s going to happen to your job when the new state-run Normandy Schools Collaborative takes over on July 1.

If you’re still interested in teaching in the district, here is what Superintendent Ty McNichols had to say in a letter sent out to staff member last week:

Missouri education officials are going to recommend that under the new Normandy school entity, which takes effect July 1, students who have transferred from that district to nearby accredited districts would still be able to do so, but tuition rates would be capped at about $7,200. No new transfers would be allowed.

Under the state plan, the transportation situation for transfer students would stay the same.

Just in time for summer vacation, Girls Inc. of St. Louis unveiled its updated north St. Louis County facility today. The goal is expanding education opportunities for poor girls.

The organization, which serves girls ages 5 to 17, provides both summer and after-school classes in subjects ranging from art to economic literacy. The upgraded 44,000-square-foot facility in Northwoods can serve up to 400 girls.

Carole Basile, the dean of the college of education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said the programs provided help students stay sharp.

The Normandy School District is undergoing a series of changes that have broad implications for education throughout the St. Louis region.

Thursday on St. Louis on the Air host Don Marsh led a wide-ranging discussion about what those changes mean for the future of education in St. Louis. The conversation began with St. Louis Public Radio education reporters Dale Singer and Tim Lloyd.

Missouri education officials, who control the finances of the Normandy school district, say they won’t pay the costs of a lawsuit that asks the courts to take another look at the student transfer case.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in St. Louis County Circuit Court, wants a reconsideration of two issues the Missouri Supreme Court rejected in its unanimous decision last year that set in motion the student transfers: unfunded mandates and the impossibility to comply with the transfer law.

It’s just after 7 a.m., and SheRon Chaney already has her family packed into an SUV and ready for school.

“On a good day like today, I’m hoping it only takes about 35 minutes,” she said.

Leave just a touch later and they could be stuck in traffic for more than an hour. It’s a quirk of St. Louis' commuter culture that Chaney picked up when she decided to transfer her seventh-grade daughter, BrenNae, out of the Normandy School District in favor of Maplewood Richmond Heights.

One day after the Missouri Board of Education voted to replace the Normandy school district with a new, state-controlled entity, Normandy filed suit challenging the law that lets students transfer from unaccredited districts.